I envision two versions of Jaime-Lee Dimes while watching the video for her new single, “Release Me.”
The first is in lockstep with the song and video. It’s slow. Contemplative and melancholy. Uncomfortably bright and claustrophobically open. Stark to the point of feeling naked.
It’s gothic horror at its best.
The song is beautiful, sharing a discord and kindred-ness with the video. The discomfort and dread that build with each listen and watch is hypnotic. Dimes clearly feels trapped; I do along with her.
“Slowly build the walls I’m weeping under / hold me down to the story you bury me under,” she intones in the chorus. “Bury me deep in the soil until I’m so far under / then release me.”
Dimes is alone in the song. Whether by choice or not, she seems a resigned prisoner.
“I wrote ‘Release Me’ when I was living in New York and there was a lot of talk about politics and immigration,” Dimes said. “It got me going deep into my own lineage, experiences, personal blocks and obstacles in life, which led me to find the commonalities and connection with the current state of society. The lyrics come from a very honest place that is cathartic to sing.”
All of this feels internal. The video may as well be a projector in Dimes’s brain as she processes, languishes under and ultimately breaks through those blocks and obstacles.
That’s the second image of the singer-songwriter. It’s outward, simpler. More natural. She’s somewhere public, maybe a bar or a dinner party, and one comment brings everything internal to the fore, splayed out on her face. Everything internal released in one instant.
I don’t imagine her face going from passive to enraged. Rather, I think her new default is defiant and determined. She’s released herself.
